Interesting.<p>I will say I find the writing a little off putting. Felt like they wanted to rope in every name, company and person involved here.<p>"medieval hazards" I don't even know what that means but mold is a thing in the modern area too.<p>Clearly this publication is pro labor unions (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Notes" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Notes</a>), but it is strange that they push this narrative and note how people in the labor union were working in these poor conditions:<p>"many have required their union workers to build on 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. Despite months of worker concerns, managers waited until early February to take basic precautions against the mold—precautions that might slow construction"<p>Gee thanks labor unions for helping out?<p>This article is all over the place.<p>There's a story here that IMO could have been told, and accomplished the same goals without the internal weirdness of the article sort of pointing back at itself.
Certain types of plywood are a magnet for mold growth. The natural oils in the wood (like birch) plus certain types of glues that contain organic compounds are the perfect environment for mold to thrive.<p>From my understanding, marine-grade plywoods are more resistant to mold growth, and of course, you could paint the plywood with mold-inhibiting paint.<p>This is a supply chain issue that needs addressed at the source (supplier level).<p>There are well known charts that define safe operating environments for temperature and humidity. If you go outside these bounds, its easy to calculate the number of days until an object develops mold.<p><a href="https://energyhandyman.com/knowledge-library/mold-chart-for-temperature-and-humidity-monitors/" rel="nofollow">https://energyhandyman.com/knowledge-library/mold-chart-for-...</a>
> Dugan and scores of others now believe they are in the midst of a health crisis at the site. “We don’t get sick pay,” Dugan said. “You’re sick, you’re out of luck.”<p>There was a post yesterday slamming the CHIPS act for having too much D&I in which they referenced the "huge" costs of forcing construction firms to give full healthcare coverage (and more) to employees. This is a perfect example of how the market does not meet the bar without intervention.
From the perspective of someone who's done formal mold abatement projects everything about this is deeply frustrating. PPE to work in a mold contaminated environment safely is inexpensive and ubiquitous. Likewise, the equipment and materials required to safely segregate mold contaminated materials from the larger working environment are inexpensive and simple to install. This could have been avoided.
> Although Dugan, Shaffer, and other members say their union stewards on site helped press their concerns to management, they say that local and international IBEW officers who visited the facility scoffed at their concerns.<p>Why did their own union scoff at the safety concerns?
Doubly unfortunate, being that mold remediation on an item isn't terribly complicated or difficult, but mold remediation in-vivo, or in a structure, is much more complex.<p>That's not to say hosing down hundreds of crates with biocide is great, it's not, but, it's certainly far better than what they're doing here...
Did Ford figure out their "unspecified quality issue" and actually resume production yet? Last I saw was it was halted in February. Is it possible it was related to this issue in terms of their battery production?<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-stops-shipments-2024-f-150-lightning-2024-02-23/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ford-s...</a>
<i>When Dugan walked in, huge wooden boxes containing battery-making machines, largely shipped from overseas, were laid across the mile-long factory floor. Black streaks on those wooden boxes, plus the smell, immediately raised alarm bells for workers.</i><p>Has anyone thought about nefarious foreign actors introducing biological agents to stymie the build ?
Several other articles by professional news outlets using more common American English language:.<p><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=ford%20battery%20factory%20mold" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=ford%20battery%20factory%20m...</a>
Can mold cause a bacterial infection? Or are they trying too hard to connect the dots? Similarly, it seems like the rest of the article is filled with numbers that may sound significant on their own but I would like to see how they compare to normal. A certain number of people will get sick whether they were exposed to mold or not, with thousands of workers on site the number of illnesses will always be a good bit greater than zero.